Material handling vehicles are used to move items inside a factory, a warehouse, a freight transfer station, a store, or other type of facilities. Material handling vehicles are designed in a variety of configurations to perform a variety of tasks. As with most modern industrial equipment, there are many different options available to the purchaser or operator of the material handling vehicle depending on the configuration or task required. Some of the options may require installation by the manufacturer of the material handling vehicle at the time of manufacture. Other options may be installed by a dealer or could be installed in the form of an upgrade at a customer site. Some options may require only software controlling the material handling vehicle to be reconfigured or modified.
As the sophistication of material handling vehicles has increased, software and programming of various types of controllers has become an increasingly important aspect of customization. Traditionally, a technician equipped with a computer is required to connect the computer to a material handling vehicle control system to configure any of the software components required for activation of specific options. The technician could do this at a dealership or at a customer location.
There are several drawbacks to the traditional method of activating options on material handling vehicles, or industrial equipment in general. Requiring a technician to connect a computer to the material handling vehicle to activate options at a dealership or customer location is expensive and takes time and effort to coordinate. Further, traditional option activation processes limit manufacturers with the options that can be physically built into a specific vehicle. The same limitations impact the upgradeability of material handling vehicles already sold and deployed to customer locations.
What is needed is a material handling vehicle configured to allow controllable activation of options.